বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্রঃ ত্রয়োদশ খণ্ড
disturbing disparity between the help required and the means actually available. To save innumerable lives people must awake to the need. Public and private aid, including our own contribution, is being offered but it is not nearly enough. It is not too much to hope that the world will be touched by the plight of these people and send the things that are essential: food, clothing, medicine and money."
The money needed-The refugee programme is the biggest that has ever been mounted this century. The programme is currently running at $350 million for six months-over £1 million a day. T he United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees called for funds to meet India's burden: so far only $114 million has been pledged, $70 million of which has been contributed by one country: America.
The British Government's contribution has been £8 million to India and £1 million to Pakistan. In addition to this British charities have spent another £1 million on their own programmes.
To get some kind of scale to the sum Leslie Kirkley asks of the British Government, two facts should be borne in mind.
International aid to Pakistan from 1950 to 1969 amounted to an astronomical $6,033 million: or over $300 million a year. Since the present crisis, new aid to Pakistan has been postponed by the major donor countries-with considerable savings to the British Government (last year, Britain's aid to Pakistan was £9'/2 million).
2. President Nixon is currently asking Congress for an additional $250 million.
(Acknowledgements Oxfam thanks those who made the Testimony of Sixty possible. The contributors make their testimony in their own words, photographs or sketches. Their views do not necessarily coincide with those of Oxfam; nor are they bound by their statements to Oxfam's policy. We thank Clare Holling worth, Nicholas Tomallin and Martin Woollacott who gave their time for the main articles; the Daily Telegraph, the Sunday Times and the Guardian who released them; Romagno Cagnoni, Alan Leather and Donald McCullin for their photographs, Dennis O'Dair of the Observer for his design; all the eye-witnesses for the trouble and expense they took to get their statements in on time for the publication; finally to Gerald Scarfe, whom we rang for an eye-witness statement, but said “I'm not a man of words" and gave these drawings.)
SENATOR EDWARD KENNEDY
Mosaic of misery
This stark tragedy is not yet understood by the world. I can tell you that not until you see it first-hand can you begin to understand its immensity. For only by being there can you sense the feelings and understand the plight of the people, and the forces of violence which continue to create refugees and increase the toll of civilian casualties.
In India I visited refugee areas along the entire border of East Bengal-from Calcutta and West Bengal in the west-to the Jalpaiguri and Darjeeling districts in the north-to